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distribution on which software can be configured without administrators needing a deep understanding of all the components.

Linux competitor Red Hat's focus is to provide reliable open source software, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the software is easy to use. It tries to provide good tools that do what they're told. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, almost all old utilities are retired and administrators work from the command line.

On SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), the approach is different. SUSE relies on Yet another Setup Tool (YaST), which it develops with each version, through its current status in SLES 12.

Having an accessible management utility is important in a domain where technique evolves quickly. The integrated management tool saves admins from having to acquire new skills to work with each newly introduced feature.

The bad old days

In early versions of SUSE, YaST corrupted some manually created configurations. Linux veterans have plenty of horror stories about how YaST corrupted all of their work by just overwriting the manually modified configuration files. However, the days of YaST altering configurations without warning are long gone.

In recent versions of SLES, YaST picks up the current version of the underlying configuration files and shows manually adjusted modifications. This change in its approach almost completely removes the risk of accidental damage.

Move your YaST

Even for experienced Linux admins, YaST is a helpful tool for getting things done. Some services consist of multiple configuration files that need to be tied together. Admins don't have to figure out which configuration files are involved because YaST offers a generic interface and applies modifications to all relevant files, as seen in Figure 1. This lets them build complex configurations without mistakes.

Advanced admins can start out with an easy setup from the configuration files, then fine-tune settings directly in the files without creating any conflicts in the configuration.

Figure 1. YaST uncomplicates configuring a firewall. Most difficult tasks can be simplified by implementing YaST.

Using SuSE YaST doesn't mean that administrators have to boot their server in a graphical mode. Although there is a reliable graphical version of YaST, there's also a text-based version that is 100% compatible. It has the same software and interface, but the text version works smoothly over remote secure shell sessions.

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